Page:My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus.djvu/365

312 sensational kind, and had to be made on excrescences well rounded by glacial action. Though they just sufficed to maintain one's equilibrium, they left nothing over for emergencies, and the slightest slip with a foot, or any miscalculation of the frictional resistance of fingers on smooth rock, would have involved my swinging free on the rope. The latter would have been extremely unfortunate, for I must necessarily have swung round the corner and dangled six feet or more from the cliff. It may not be beyond the strength of two men to pull a third up sixty feet, but the experimental determination of this problem did not commend itself to me. By the exercise of much care, I succeeded in safely reaching the fault, and was able to just squeeze into a fairly secure cleft.

I then tied my end of the rope on to a piece of strong string, in order that, by so lengthening it, the lower end could always be held by me, and I could thus check any pendulum movement should the Tartar slip. He showed, however, the utmost skill and resolution, and came down without requiring help of any sort. Indeed, his references to Shaitan were of as trifling and perfunctory a soil) as is compatible with a sound and unimpaired belief in a future state. Zurfluh next lowered the axes and other luggage, but we found it impossible to store all this impedimenta in the gully. The Tartar, in consequence, had to continue the descent so as to make room for it.